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Kenneth Noland: A Retrospective

Kenneth Noland (1924–2010) had his first retrospective exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1977. Diane Waldman, who worked closely with Noland to organize the exhibition, wrote the catalogue essay in which she comprehensively describes Noland’s influences, teachers, and friends that have inspired his work. The exhibition catalogue provides a mid-career study on Noland’s body of work. It includes a detailed chronology, as well as color and black-and-white reproductions of works in the exhibition, and quotes from an unpublished interview with Noland from 1971.

Excerpt

Noland spent the summer of 1950 at Black Mountain College, where he met and became friendly with Paul Goodman, who taught writing, and Clement Greenberg with whom he developed a close friendship. He also met Helen Frankenthaler who was visiting for a few days. Frankenthaler, who was studying with Hans Hofmann in Provincetown, was Noland's only personal link to Abstract Expressionism at the time. She did not, however, directly influence Noland's work during this period as he continued to absorb the impact of Klee.